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Designed by Thomas Fuller and Chilion Jones, and inspired by the British Museum Reading Room,[2] the building is formed as a chapter house,[3] separated from the main body of the Centre Block by a corridor; this arrangement, as well as many other details of the design, was reached with the input of the then parliamentary librarian, Alpheus Todd.[4] The walls, supported by a ring of 16 flying buttresses, are load bearing, double-wythe masonry, consisting of a hydraulic lime rubble fill core between an interior layer of dressed stone and rustic Nepean sandstone on the exterior.[5] Around the windows and along other edges is dressed stone trim, along with a multitude of stone carvings, including floral patterns and friezes, keeping with the Victorian High Gothic style of the rest of the parliamentary complex. The roof, set in three tiers topped by a cupola, used to be a timber frame structure covered with slate tiles, but has been rebuilt with steel framing and deck covered with copper.[6] The initial overall combination of colours—grey Gloucester limestone and grey Nepean, red Potsdam and buff Ohio sandstones, as well as purple and green slate banding—conformed to the picturesque style known as structural polychromy.[7]

The library's collection comprises 600,000 items, covering hundreds of years of history and tended by a staff of 300.[3] Access to the facility is generally restricted to those on parliamentary business, but research publications are produced by the library and are available to the public. The main branch on Parliament Hill is only the central hub of a larger complex that spreads to other parliamentary buildings, where services are offered in a number of branch libraries and reading rooms.[6]

The Library of Parliament's roots lie in the 1790s, when the legislative libraries of Upper and Lower Canada were created; these operated separately until the creation of the Province of Canada in 1841 and the collections were amalgamated and followed the provincial capital as it moved between Kingston, Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec City. The library was to be established in Ottawa after, in 1867, Queen Victoria chose Bytown as the new seat for her crown in the Dominion of Canada, and the Library of Parliament Act formed the institution in 1871.[9]

Though construction of the present library began in 1859 and the collection arrived in Ottawa in 1866, work was halted in 1861 and was not completed until 1876, when the 47,000 volumes—including several donated by Queen Victoria—were installed. Around 1869, the builders discovered that they didn't have the technical knowledge to build the domed roof, meaning that Thomas Fairbairn Engineering Co. Ltd. of Manchester had to be contracted to provide a pre-fabricated dome within a few weeks; this gave the Library of Parliament the distinction of being the first building in North America to have a state-of-the-art wrought iron roof. Further, in 1883, the library's 300 gas lights were converted to electricity.[7] However, such additional costs brought the library's price to $301,812, a sum added on top of the total cost for all the parliament buildings, which had already gone far above the original allotted budget.[10] Within only 12 years, the entire roof was stripped of its slate shingles in a tornado that hit Parliament Hill in 1888, since then the roof has been clad in copper.[7]

A drafted architectural section of the original Centre Block, showing the Victoria Tower at the far left, and the Library of Parliament to the right

The Library of Parliament standing unharmed the day following the fire of 1916

The library's contents grew over the next five decades and were saved from the 1916 fire that destroyed the majority of the Centre Block; the building was only connected to the main complex by a single corridor and the library clerk at the time, Michael MacCormac, secured the library's iron doors before the fire could spread into that area.[3] Fire eventually broke out in 1952, in the library's cupola, and caused extensive damage through smoke and water. It was then necessary to perform structural work, as well as to install a replica of the inlaid parquet floor and dismantle the wood panelling and ship it to Montreal for cleaning and partial fireproofing.[9] The Centre, East, and West Blocks subsequently received extensive climate control and electrical upgrades, but the library was largely overlooked.

The deficiencies, plus conservation, rehabilitation, and upgrading, were addressed when a major, $52 million renovation was researched in 1996 and undertaken between 2002 and 2006.[11]Public Works and Government Services Canada contracted the Thomas Fuller Construction Company (operated by the building designer's great-grandsons) to manage a project that fixed leaks in the roof and crumbling mortar in the walls on the exterior,[12][13] as well as extensive repairs to the wood and plaster work and the installation of climate control systems on the interior.[14] Also done at the time was a nine metre deep excavation of the bedrock beneath the library building, in order to provide more storage space, mechanical areas, and a link to an existing loading dock.[15] The project used precision survey, laser measurement, photogrammetry, and the then fledgling technology of Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application.[7] After four years of work, the library was opened to the public, with tours of the library resuming on 5 June 2006,[16] though Thomas Fuller Construction filed a $21 million lawsuit against the Crown for cost overruns.[15]